Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are employed in a variety of settings, including industrial settings such as warehouse facilities (e.g. for retrieving and moving inventory, or for in-process assembly). The deployment of some AGVs requires the accompanying deployment of physical infrastructure in the facility, such as magnetic or coloured tape, reflectors, RFID tags, and the like. Such infrastructure can be detected by the AGVs, which are in turn configured to execute instructions based on which infrastructure elements they detect.
Systems such as those described above can be time-consuming and costly to deploy, and are also not suitable in some environments. In addition, the guiding infrastructure is subject to wear and tear and accidental damage, which can result in interruptions to AGV operations while the infrastructure is repaired or replaced. Further, the above-mentioned AGVs are typically capable of executing only a limited set of instructions, requiring the system operators to translate complex spatial and process requirements into such limited instruction sets.